Personally, I think it’d be hilarious if we lost the Rugby World Cup again

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Chris Rattue is a journalistic dynamo.

He arrives at the New Zealand Herald every morning by swinging through a window dressed in a mask and chevalier, a cutlass between his teeth, and a pistol spraying bullets left, right and centre. Every morning.

At first it was kind of annoying, but now, nobody even notices. “Oh, there’s Zorro Rattue with his cutlass—oh, bother, that bullet pierced my monitor. Oh deary me. Who will stop this madman?” fellow Herald writers would yawn.

At his desk, he starts his computer with a flourish of his hands, and screams, “ALAKAZAM!” as Windows ME appears on screen. He then cracks his knuckles, cocks his neck side to side and spins a conveniently-placed raffle wheel he stole from a pub in Kihikihi in 1993. It twirls, but nobody looks up—they saw this yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that—and smirks as it lands on two words: “Graham Henry.”

He produces two darts from his pocket and twirls around in his chair. Covering his eyes with a hand, Rattue launches the darts mid-spin and waits for the satisfying “CA-DUNK CA-DUNK” sounds he’s all too familiar with. He peeks through his fingers and giggles. Dart #1 is lodged between a cubicle near the Herald on Sunday desks, while Dart #2 has found a home in the Lifestyle section. Rattue rubs his hands together and “muhahahas”.

“Graham Henry,” he types, “needs to herald a new lifestyle this Sunday… when the All Blacks GO BELLY UP AND LOSE AS ONLY THEY KNOW HOW…”
And so, like a new-born calf, a new Chris Rattue column oozes its way into the world.

One is at a loss to explain why Chris Rattue hates everything so much. The Herald is a perfectly adequate publication with a feisty sports section choc-o-block with pretty graphics and stuff with things.

He lives in Auckland, home to the Sky Tower and that other building that’s not the Sky Tower. He shares a press box at Eden Park with that guy from the Dom Post and that dude who used to read sports on 92.2 2XS FM in Palmerston North. His shorthand could be used to convey words—things are “pretty good”, perhaps even “not too bad” in Rattue country.

And yet, he’s angry. Chris Rattue is so angry he doesn’t even know what he’s angry about. He masks his frustration with carefully timed cackles and gesticulations, but deep down inside—right before the bile ducts—his sweaty, hearty, fan-the-flames and kill-the-messenger bitter bombastic bombs are overwhelming.

No one’s known his righteous indignation quite like All Black coach Graham Henry. Following the All Blacks Rugby World Cup exit in 2007, Rattue wrote that he’d never support an All Black side coached by the former Grammar headmaster again.

Other gentle thoughts include, “The blood that should have been spilled after the appalling World Cup campaign of 2007 needs to flow right now,” and “…the All Blacks could play in sackcloths and they’d still stomp all over France,” prior to the aforementioned World Cup.

It’s because of Chris Rattue that I would find an All Blacks loss in ’11 absolutely, and without reservation, delusion, or pretensions, the funniest fucking thing ever.

It would be several different shades of amazing to read “BARHGAH NEW ZEALAND RUGBY IS DEAD TO ME ARRAGHAH I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG BAHFHAHF THIS IS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE WHEN DOVES CRY GARRGGGAH!” from the pen of Sire Rattue in October 2011.

“But MJO,” you croon, you sway, you swagger, “Don’t you want to see Richie McGod raise aloft yonder William Webb upon noble Eden Park?” Why, yes, friend. I do. I imagine the thought of winning a Rugby World Cup to be likened to watching the final episode of Lost. After that, sport will be dead to me.

But should they fail, like so many Blighty Boys could have during the Battle of Britain, a new dark age of Rattuesque ranting will be ushered in. His words will ring bloody and strong in the ears of all and sundry. It would be like so many Christmas hams crammed into one 1000 word strong diatribe of pure fucking mayhem.

I just want to see him explode. There’s really nothing more to it. I just want to see Chris Rattue explode.

For the love of god, choke. All Blacks. For the love of comedy, choke. Make my dreams come Rattrue.

Comments (1)

Yeah, we have a few of those in America as well – especially Jay Mariotti, an annoying, sniveling, worthless cunt who can only complain about things while being sure to include five rhetorical questions in every fucking diatribe.

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